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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28299660">Santa Claus Is Coming To Town</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonderwrites/pseuds/sonderwrites'>sonderwrites</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Muggle, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Christmas, Christmas Eve, Creepy, Evil Santa Claus, Gen, Inspired by A Christmas Carol, One Shot, Short One Shot, Songfic, Triplets, Wool's Orphanage (Harry Potter)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 01:13:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,711</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28299660</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonderwrites/pseuds/sonderwrites</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Christmases at Wool's Orphanage aren't quite so cheerful and pleasant...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Harry Potter &amp; Tom Riddle</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Santa Claus Is Coming To Town</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Under the covers of their beds in the boy’s dormitory sprung the famous Triplets of Wool’s Orphanage. All three of them were holding lit candles, and their facial features twisted in the most creepy ways as the light bounced off their faces.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Everyone else was already awake. The ones who’d been here a long time knew the drill, and the new ones had stayed awake out of curiosity. Every year, the week before Christmas, the Triplets made sure to do their spiel as soon as it hit midnight.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harry slid out of his bed, and quickly hurried over to under Tom’s covers for safety.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The two had been friends their whole lives. They were both born in the same year, and were both delivered to the same orphanage as babies. They’d grown up together, and had a sort of mutual understanding of each other not many other people shared.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harry had a tendency to be scared of all the smallest of things, such as what the Triplets did every Christmas, but Tom would always be there to comfort him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The Triplets now smirked simultaneously, and began their speech straight after.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s nearly Christmas, boys,” the first, William, said coolly.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>William always seemed to be the one bossing the other two triplets around. At least, everyone assumed it was always William; the only way to tell William and his brother, Joseph, apart, was by a few largely different freckles on their faces.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Which means Santa Claus is coming to town,” Joseph said in an almost giddy way.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He sees you when you’re sleeping,” the third and final brother, Edward, said darkly.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Edward was easily the creepiest of the Triplets, and he looked quite different from his two brothers. While the other two had brown hair, pale green eyes, and a body almost entirely dotted with freckles, Edward’s hair was blonde, his eyes were brown, and he only had a few freckles spotted here and there.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>William spoke again, “and he knows when you’re awake.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He knows if you’ve been bad or good,” continued Joseph.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“So be good for goodness sake,” Edward finished, and then the Triplets blew out their candles and went back under their covers as if they’d been asleep the whole time, whilst some of the others in the dorm still had shivers going down their spines.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Santa Claus was not someone to be excited about the arrival of.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The speech the Triplets said had been perfected over the years, to the point where it hadn’t changed for the past three years, and the three years before that that the Triplets had been at the orphanage, it was constantly changing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But that speech wasn’t the whole tale. Ever since the Triplets had arrived years ago, they had weaved little creepy stories into the minds of every other orphan. The tale got bigger and bigger, and scarier and scarier. This thing every Christmas was just a reminder, and a trigger for shooting the fear back into the other boy’s hearts. Santa Claus; the white-bearded, blood-red-outfitted, stalker-murderer who especially liked eating orphans, and so much more.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>No one knew exactly how the three brothers had ended up at the orphanage. Rumours were they’d killed their own parents, but Tom highly doubted that was the case. Sure, they were creepy, but capable of murder? Surely not. A more likely explanation was that their mother had died from complications with birth, as would be likely to happen if you’re carrying three babies at once, and then perhaps the father died a few years later, or something like that. But no one had wanted to adopt them the whole six years they’d been there, just as no one had wanted to adopt Tom and Harry the whole nine years they’d been there. Not that Tom would let the two of them get separated if someone </span>
  <em>
    <span>did </span>
  </em>
  <span>want to adopt one of them.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tom could still feel Harry pressed against him, and so he moved the blanket to completely cover both of them for more privacy and a sense of security.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s okay. Santa Claus isn’t real,” Tom told Harry softly, when he noticed he still looked shook.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harry was silent for a moment before he said, “but how do you know for sure?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t,” Tom said simply, and then added, “but I can prove it. What if we stay up on Christmas and see if anyone comes?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harry stared, and gulped. No one ever stayed up on Christmas. Santa Claus was more likely to come and get you if he knew you were awake, which he always did. You had to have every part of your body covered in your blanket, and be fast asleep all night, no matter how hard it was to do so, otherwise it would surely be your last night on earth.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you if he is real,” Tom reassured Harry when he still wasn’t speaking.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harry was half-comforted by that, but years of fears and tales were enough to still keep Harry on high alert. It didn’t matter that nothing bad had ever happened on Christmas before the Triplets had arrived, they’d long since convinced every child at Wool’s Orphanage that the night of Christmas Eve was something to be feared.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Eventually, Harry nodded, and reluctantly agreed, even if all his instincts were telling him no.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The week went by eerily slow. And the Triplets just had to weave more fear in with little words here and there, and other creepy sing-song things.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You better watch out,” was William one random morning.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You better not cry,” was Joseph.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And “You better not pout,” was Edward.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m telling you why.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Santa Claus is coming to town.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And he’s nearly here, everyone.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>More shivers down spines as the children nervously awaited the inevitable arrival of the soulless just-an-abyss Santa Claus.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And then finally, as everyone had been dreading, the night of Santa Claus’ arrival came. No matter how hard people tried, you simply couldn’t just skip this day with your brain power.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There was a lot of tossing and turning going on in people’s beds. The harder people tried to sleep, the more difficult it actually got to fall into it. But Tom and Harry weren’t trying to fall asleep, they were trying to stay awake.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Both were huddled together in Tom’s bed again, trying to listen to the soft tick of the clock a little outside their dorm over the sounds of the other orphans trying to sleep.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Eventually, the room was almost deadly silent, and Tom and Harry crawled up and sat on their blanket on their bed, waiting.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They started to shiver from the cold of the air, and so they warmed each other with their body heat.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Waiting.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Waiting.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The time seemed to drag on longer than the whole week had gone, and Tom was just about to tell Harry that he had been right, Santa Claus wasn’t coming because he didn’t exist, and they could sleep, but then they heard a stirring coming from all three of the Triplets’ beds, enough to be more than just usual sleep-movement, so Tom and Harry quickly hid underneath their blanket again and watched from the gap at the end.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The Triplets got out of their beds, and then sat on the ground, bunched together, knees up against their chests. They seemed to be waiting for something as well.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tom and Harry held their breath, afraid that they may alert the Triplets of their spying by breathing too loudly.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And then, out of nowhere, someone appeared, and the Triplets jumped to their feet. At first Tom thought it was out of fear, but upon closer inspection of their faces, he realised it was actually excitement.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The suddenly-appearing person in question seemed not entirely there, and yet he still obviously was there at the same time. It was very strange. But the worst part was that this person almost exactly matched how the Triplets had described Santa Claus, except without any blood dripping from his mouth and fingers. Was this him? If so, why were the Triplets so excited? And why did this person look so cheerful?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harry was now shaking, although his face had a sense of wonderment about it. Tom pressed his body closer to him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But what came next shocked them both more than they thought possible.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Daddy!” exclaimed Edward, rushing over to the maybe-Santa Claus, and attempting to give him a hug. The hug failed though, with the boy’s arms going through the person. Edward looked sad, but with a reassuring look from the ghost-man, he went back to just smiling up at them.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The other two triplets came over to say hello. All of them calling him ‘Daddy’, and all of them overfilled with joy.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was such a strange sight to see. The ghost-man, and the Triplets vulnerable and happy. Tom almost wanted to cry.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Santa Claus wasn’t so bad after all. He was… the Triplets’ dad? And a ghost? </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tom couldn’t quite comprehend, but he knew there was nothing to fear about Santa Claus now, and apparently so did Harry, as he’d calmed down a lot now.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Then all of a sudden the moon shone through the window, touched Santa Claus, and he faded away. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The Triplets stayed just standing there for a long while before they quietly said “Merry Christmas” to one another, and crawled back into their beds sadly.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harry looked ready to sleep too, but Tom just couldn’t turn away from the spot Santa Claus had been now. It was fascinating. Tom couldn’t figure out what on earth had just happened, and that was okay. He just kind of felt at peace. There were many unexplainable things in this world, and that was sometimes okay.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tom decided to go to sleep then, and he slept the best on a Christmas night than he had ever since the Triplet’s arrived, and the one after that, and the one after that. So did Harry. Of course, the other orphans still lived in fear, but what did they matter? Besides, it would be respectful to the Triplets to keep their secret safe between just the five of them. And that’s exactly what happened, right up until they all left the orphanage.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I hope everyone has a wonderful, wonderful Christmas!!!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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